


The Name of Action

by tastewithouttalent



Category: 91 Days (Anime)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Apologies, Domestic, Established Relationship, Goodbye Sex, Inline with canon, Lies, M/M, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-13 23:27:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19261300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Things are simpler here than they are in the city, gentle with space for missteps that the tightrope wire of judgment and mistrust Angelo has been walking can’t allow for, and when Angelo leans in across the span of the table between them Corteo is as forgiving as ever, with none of the resistance Angelo is half expecting and fully certain he deserves." Angelo gives Corteo a night for them to share and takes one for himself.





	1. Absolution

Angelo is gentle with Corteo the first night back.

He would like to think he has been gentle every time, that he has always treated Corteo with the care and affection that he knows the other more than deserves. But Angelo knows too well how driven he has been these last months, how laser-tight his focus has become, and when he reaches for recollections of the last weeks he can hardly recall Corteo in them at all, can’t call up any details of the other’s face or smile or touch even knowing Corteo must have been there with him the whole time. Corteo has been at his side from the beginning, lingering close as a shadow at Angelo’s heels, a constant presence to offer whatever Angelo needs of him; and Angelo has made him a tool, a means to the end that sometimes feels more vital than the breath in his lungs. Angelo can hardly find it in him to regret his actions, not when they have sent him down a path towards the only peace he can ever imagine finding; but recalling Corteo to his mind bears with it startling intensity, as if Angelo has opened his eyes to rouse from a dream that has too long held him in its thrall.

Angelo had forgotten the way Corteo tastes. It’s been so long since he thought of kissing anyone, since his intention left space for anything beyond the absolute, entire vengeance that still burns in his chest like an open flame even here, even now. But things are simpler here than they are in the city, gentle with space for missteps that the tightrope wire of judgment and mistrust Angelo has been walking can’t allow for, and when Angelo leans in across the span of the table between them Corteo is as forgiving as ever, with none of the resistance Angelo is half expecting and fully certain he deserves. Corteo’s lashes dip as Angelo ducks closer, his lips soften as quickly as Angelo presses a kiss to them, and when Angelo reaches to wind his hand into the loose weight of Corteo’s hair Corteo answers in kind, fitting the delicate span of his fingers to the back of Angelo’s head to trail down and press radiant heat to the back of the other’s neck.

Angelo has never felt anything as keenly as he feels Corteo under him. They have slept together before, in the desperate days when physical comfort seemed the only thing that Angelo could hold to to keep himself from following all of his family into death, and later, when resignation had chilled his blood until it was only in pressing close to Corteo that he could recall any part of the humanity that once used to flow so freely through him. Most recently Angelo recalls roughness, his hands gripping bruises to Corteo’s arms to brace the other still while he spent the raw anxiety of anticipation against the relief of the other’s body beneath him, but those are fragments, memories too thin to do anything but shatter like glass beneath the force of the emotions they are meant to bear. Angelo has given up his more gentle feelings, has let them be swept away by the tide of revenge to which he has offered up his life; this moment of peace, of calm found within a space made comfortable more by nostalgia than fact, is so unexpected and unlooked-for that in the first few minutes of kissing the give of Corteo’s mouth Angelo doesn’t know if it is a smile or tears that will break over him from the press of heat aching impossible pressure against the inside of his chest.

Corteo doesn’t say anything. He could; Angelo wouldn’t blame him for protesting, for refusing, for even just asking for an apology, even if Angelo can’t fumble his way into the structure of giving one. But Corteo just gives way, surrendering to the plea of Angelo’s mouth on his with the grace that Angelo has grown accustomed to thinking a weakness, that perhaps has always carried more strength in it than he realized, and when they fall back to the narrow span of the thin mattress they are carried there as much by Corteo’s movement as by Angelo’s. Corteo’s fingers curl into Angelo’s hair, his grip gentle but no less certain for that, and when Angelo parts his lips it is Corteo who tastes against his mouth, the motion no less wanting for how gentle it is. Angelo has to ease his hold deliberately, has to unknot the fist of his fingers from the loose weight of Corteo’s hair falling around the other’s face so he can reach between them to unfasten the hold of their clothes, but when Corteo’s fingers slide it is with elegance, affection melding into desire so seamlessly Angelo is left wondering if there was ever any real gap between the two in Corteo’s mind.

They fit together easily. It is as if the space around them bears the echo of their shared past as much as the shadows of the lonely almost-existence Angelo was living, as if they might slide into the ghosts of the selves they once were, here, when Corteo’s mouth was the only thing to stir Angelo to anything like life again and brief interludes of physical pleasure were escape as much as indulgence. There is an escape to this, too -- Angelo knows where he is meant to be, can see the path he has set himself upon stretching away into his future -- but in the moment of pausing there is a freedom he never saw before, a truth to the possibilities written so clearly in Corteo’s wide eyes that they never even need to be said. Angelo urges Corteo’s knees open, fitting himself into the space between the other’s thighs with the touch of Corteo’s fingers at his back and against his shoulder to guide him, and when he presses forward to fit them together he imagines himself free, imagines himself a different path, a new future. The space around them a home instead of a house, Corteo beside instead of behind him: the thought is so bright, so warm that for a moment Angelo’s eyes go hot against the drag of his lashes, his vision blurs, and all he can do is press his head to Corteo’s shoulder and draw breaths ragged with emotion from the heat of the other’s skin.

Angelo doesn’t remember who he used to be. The weight of tight-gripped misery has long since hardened to fury, has become steel for his bones and a cage for his heart; the absence of that is so shocking that he feels himself more unmade than freed, as if he has lost the ability to guide his body and choose his path with the dissolution of his tight-held focus. But Corteo’s arms are wrapped around him, and Corteo’s breathing is hot against his hair, and instinct takes over, guiding Angelo’s body to seek a fulfillment he had forgotten could exist without the strain of vicious satisfaction to give it form. Sensation rises in him like a tide, swelling sudden and ebbing sharply only to surge back the higher, climbing along the curve of his spine and trembling in his thighs even as he moves to urge against the surrender of Corteo beneath him, to reach out for a connection that opens up to embrace him as quickly as he asks for it, as if it were just waiting for him to stretch out all this time. Angelo is lost, dizzy in himself, fractured apart by the removal of the goal he has invented, by the forgetfulness of the task that has haunted his dreams for all the long years of his adulthood; but Corteo’s hands are pressing close against him, Corteo’s arms urge him tight against the other’s body, and Angelo follows their guidance, giving himself over to Corteo’s keeping even as Corteo himself eases to heat beneath the work of Angelo’s body.

Angelo hardly even knows what it is he is seeking. Forgiveness, maybe, though that was granted as quickly as his lips touched Corteo’s own; comfort, certainly, if he could recall the shape of it to crave. The heat in him feels foreign, as if he has never experienced it before, as if it is something of Corteo’s holding spilling into him to remake him, to recall him back to an earlier time and an earlier place, when he was only himself without the haunting of the ghosts that are all he has left of his family. It would be enough to linger here forever, he thinks, to let the lapping tide of friction and heat and pleasure unravel the hardened structure of his existence and remake him into something else he can hardly even guess at; but Corteo’s breathing is coming faster, dragging into gasps even with his lips parted to soften the sound, and Angelo can hear anticipation in the other’s voice, can feel his heart pounding faster as if to answer Corteo’s tension with that of his own. He keeps moving, head pressed to Corteo’s shoulder and hips working with instinctive force, and when Corteo tightens against him Angelo’s fingers flex, bracing at the other’s head to hold him still as Corteo spends his breath to a groan and shudders into orgasm beneath the weight of Angelo’s body over him.

Angelo loses traction on himself, after that. Corteo is quivering beneath him, drawn through the aftershocks of pleasure with the force of Angelo moving to guide him through them, but Angelo feels heat radiant in his own self as well, as if Corteo’s pleasure is an expression of his own and better than anything his own experience could muster. His motion is guided by instinct more than thought, as the sensation in him climbs to impossible heights well after what must be the culmination of everything in Corteo coming beneath him, until when his own orgasm breaks over him it’s nearer to pain than pleasure, as his shoulders flex and his body jolts forward. His head presses tight to Corteo’s shoulder, his breathing hitches desperate as a sob, and when he comes it’s with the sound of tears in his throat as pleasure pulls free of him more by need than conscious intent. His orgasm rushes over him, eclipsing his vision to white and his strength to trembling surrender, until all he can do is hold himself still and let the waves of his pleasure speak better apology to Corteo than any clumsy words he could ever fit to his lips.

Angelo lies still, after, caught in the hazy afterglow of his pleasure while the heat of Corteo’s own release dries sticky between their stomachs. Corteo makes no motion to pull away, no indication of discomfort; his fingers linger in Angelo’s hair and at Angelo’s skin, tracing idle paths across the other’s body as if revelling in the other’s presence against him. The thought tightens Angelo’s throat with the first memory of guilt he has had in long, long years, with a sensation of failure that he hasn’t allowed himself to experience in dozens of months, until when he catches a breath it tightens to intent in spite of himself, words forming at his lips to spill to Corteo’s skin with the same involuntary need with which his body spent itself to the grip of the other’s.

“I’m sorry,” Angelo says, blurting the words against Corteo’s shoulder so they come out muffled by the heat of the other’s body and the friction of his lips dragging over the other’s skin. He ought to offer more -- Corteo deserves more than that, surely -- but all Angelo can think to do is to tighten his grip at the back of Corteo’s head and drag a ragged inhale from the comforting heat of the other’s skin beneath him. “I’m so, so sorry, Corteo.”

Corteo’s hand at Angelo’s hair slides down, smoothing the loose strands back over the other’s neck with a touch as gentle as the press of his knees to Angelo’s hips, as delicate as the texture of his skin under Angelo’s parted lips. “It’s okay,” he says, and his voice is as gentle as his touch, as soothing as the weight of his fingers tracing across Angelo’s shoulders. “I’m just happy to be here with you.”

Angelo doesn’t know why that should tighten pressure at his throat and steal his breathing to a hiccup of tears before he can call it back; but it does, some instinct in him answering the urging of those words before he can think through the logic of why. His arms tighten, his lashes go wet, and when he gasps a sob into Corteo’s shoulder Corteo’s hand is at the back of his head, smoothing against the tumble of his hair with a comfort from the faraway childhood that Angelo remembers only to feed it to fuel for his vengeance. But Corteo isn’t a memory: he’s here, real and warm and alive, and when Angelo’s breath gives way to deep, hiccuping sobs, there is a relief to them beyond anything he had ever looked to find in the hardened dedication that has become his life. He clings to Corteo, wrapping his arms tight around the other as if to lock him in place, or maybe to hold himself steady, and Corteo’s fingers curl into his hair, and if Corteo’s own breath skips on the weight of emotion it falls into perfect harmony with Angelo’s own.


	2. Perdition

Angelo lies.

Corteo has more than enough proof of this fact. Angelo has built an identity upon a skeleton of deception, has made for himself an existence wholly separate from the one Corteo has always known him to truly inhabit. He plays his part well; there are times when even Corteo struggles to see the giveaways for the mask Angelo has pulled on over himself, when it’s impossible to pick apart the shape of his smile or the sound of his laughter from the real thing that Corteo can only recall by looking all the way back into memories long years past. Angelo doesn’t flinch from deceit, makes no attempt to apologize for his untruths; and Corteo understands that, the same way he understands the form if not the fact of Angelo’s desperate, painful need for revenge. Angelo is driven forward by his goal as if by the grip of the ghosts that are all he has left of his family; and Corteo has trailed in his wake, watching Angelo make himself into Avilio, watching the mask of lies settle a little closer to fact with each passing day.

It only seems just, that in the end Angelo should lie to Corteo too.

It is not that he is rough with him. He has been gentle since their departure from the city, considerate in a way that aches in Corteo’s heart and clenches the grip of tears tight around the rhythm of his breathing. They walk the streets together calmly, strolling instead of striding, wandering as if they have the whole of the day to themselves, as if they have a lifetime before them; as if they are truly together, in this moment of peace. They buy dishes, and food, household necessities to fill out the bare bones of the ghostly survival Angelo used to sustain in this home, and when they cook dinner they wash the dishes as if they will be used again, as if there will be a time when they are both here again in this space together. Angelo stands at Corteo’s side to dry as Corteo washes, holding a smile on his lips that looks as true as the ones Corteo remembers from a childhood before that awful, bloodstained night; and Corteo doesn’t look at his eyes so he doesn’t have to see past the delicate mask of calm that Angelo has drawn on over the tight-wound tension of his existence.

It is Corteo who turns the light off before they go to the bed. It seems as if it may be easier to bear, if he can excuse the shadows in Angelo’s face as no more than the darkness of the night around them; and he cannot refuse, not when every part of his body is crying out for this last selfish indulgence. Angelo waits for Corteo to shut the lamp off, standing alongside the bed with expectation taut in his shoulders and waiting in the slack weight of his hands, and when Corteo comes in there’s no hesitation in crossing the distance to Angelo’s waiting form. Corteo draws in close, as if they are the lovers they might have been in another lifetime, as if there is truly nothing waiting for them beyond the thin mattress on the narrow bed, and Angelo lifts his hands to reach for Corteo’s waist and draw him in as gently as if his hands have never known any other purpose. Angelo ducks his chin, and tips his head to the side, and when Corteo shuts his eyes it is as much to persuade himself of the lie as to surrender to the heat of Angelo’s mouth at his own.

Angelo is patient in getting their clothes off. Corteo remembers frantic hands, desperate fingers dragging at fabric to bare some minimal amount of skin to allow Angelo to release some part of the unbearable tension of anticipation in him in the too-brief relief of physical pleasure; but tonight they move slow as a dance, with the shadows of night to curve around them in turn. Angelo slides Corteo’s buttons free of his shirt, Corteo unfastens the front of Angelo’s pants, and when they move back to the bed it is with nothing but bare skin between them, one pressing to the other as if they may be able to attain real intimacy this way, as if the gap between them is something as simply crossed as the breath of space between one form and the other. Corteo sets one hand at Angelo’s back, touching his fingers to the curve of tension at the base of the other’s spine, and Angelo draws a breath as if startled by the response of his own body to the persuasion of Corteo’s touch. It’s Angelo who leans in to catch Corteo’s mouth with his, to hold them fixed to a kiss as he pushes Corteo down to the sheets below them, and Corteo lets himself go, lets himself give in to the illusion for as long as the nighttime shadows allow it.

Angelo is quick with preparation. They may be imagining themselves free, playing the role of reunited lovers with the whole of their future ahead of them, but if they are actors the curtains are hanging heavy in the wings, and Corteo is sure Angelo can feel the weight of impending conclusion bearing down on both of them. Better to make quick work of the necessities, to bring them close together to linger for as much time as they can steal away from the slow turn of fate. Angelo works Corteo open, moving with an efficiency that still manages grace instead of anxious speed, and when he leans in to fit his knees between Corteo’s own Corteo opens his legs without being asked to invite the heat of Angelo’s body against his. Angelo presses over him, leaning in close to steady his shoulders over the span of Corteo’s own, and when he rocks his hips forward to fit them together Corteo shudders an exhale like a sob and reaches to claim Angelo’s hair for the hold of his fingers.

They move together easily. Corteo’s body remembers the heat of Angelo’s against it, his desire rising to follow Angelo’s as surely as Corteo has felt himself compelled to trail in the shadow of the other’s path; and Angelo is gentle, careful and considerate as if this is their first time, as if he truly has set aside the aching need for vengeance that he carries so deep in the marrow of his bones. His hands at Corteo’s hair are gentle, his fingers stroking to tenderness instead of closed to fists, and when his body tilts forward to rock them nearer Corteo responds in kind, his breath catching and skin glowing to warmth as if coaxed there by no more than the sound of Angelo’s breathing against his shoulder. Angelo’s arm angles over Corteo’s head, his fingers trace the waves of the other’s hair, and when he speaks his voice is gentle too, muffled to softness by the thin blankets beneath them and the line of Corteo’s shoulder pressing almost to his lips.

“We’ll be here again,” he says. His voice is so soft Corteo can almost not hear the strain on it, can almost pretend there is nothing but gentle sincerity on the other’s tone. “After I’m done. I’ll come back here to be with you again, Corteo.”

Corteo gazes up at the darkness of the room around them, watching the shadows shift as the seconds pass to eat away at the disguise of the night enveloping them. He loosens his hold in Angelo’s hair, slides his fingers down to ease across the back of the other’s neck. His voice is tighter than Angelo’s, less fluid in the framing of the untruth, but his knees are tight around Angelo’s hips and it will pass for arousal, perhaps, if Angelo notices it. “Yes.”

“You won’t have to wait long.” Angelo’s hand touches Corteo’s waist, bracing against the curve of the other’s body to hold them steady as his hips keep moving in their steady rhythm, bringing them together for a moment before sliding away to retreat again. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Next time you go shopping I’ll be able to go with you.”

Corteo blinks hard towards the shadows of the ceiling. “Okay.”

“I’ll come back.” Angelo’s fingers tighten for a moment before he deliberately eases them into a stroke over Corteo’s hip. “You know I will. It’ll be over, we can go back to the way things were before.”

“I know.”

“Just you and me.” Angelo is moving faster, tipping himself forward to work closer against Corteo beneath him; his breathing is tightening but Corteo thinks that’s the advent of arousal more than anything else. Angelo would never have made it this far if he couldn’t lie with perfect ease. “It’ll be done and we’ll be together, Corteo.” He shudders a breath to Corteo’s shoulder and ducks his head down close against the support of the other’s body. “I won’t have to think about anything but you anymore.”

Corteo has to shut his eyes. For a moment his throat is too tight to allow him to force out even a pretending of agreement; he has to compel himself to swallow before he can manage to speak, and then it’s strained almost past coherency. “Yes, Angelo.”

“Corteo,” Angelo breathes, and turns his head to fit his mouth to the curve of the other’s neck. “Are you close?”

Corteo keeps his eyes shut as he ducks his head into a nod. The wet at his lashes slides free, a tear marking a wandering trail down his cheek to be lost in the soft of Angelo’s hair against him. “Yes.”

Angelo shudders a breath. “Corteo,” he says, and his hand lifts from Corteo’s hip to fit between them so he can curl his grip in close around the heat of the other’s length. Corteo quakes with the contact, his body tightening on instinctive sensation; when the sob in his throat breaks free it comes with heat enough to pass for a moan. Angelo wraps his grip tight around Corteo, ducking his head to brace them against each other as he strokes into a counterpoint rhythm for the motion of his hips, and Corteo lets himself give way, lets himself dissolve into the role he is meant to play. Angelo is with him, pressing the imprint of their joined bodies to the sheets of the bed beneath them; they will come back here, there will be other times, there will be a future when the price of vengeance is paid. Corteo will reach out, and Angelo will smile as he used to, with the curve of it meeting his eyes, and when Angelo cries out into Corteo’s shoulder there will be nothing but the relief of pleasure on the sound. Everything will be over, and all will be well, and they will be together; and Corteo arches, and whimpers, and spends himself to the persuasion of fantasy. Angelo’s fingers tighten around him, his breathing tenses at Corteo’s skin, and Corteo shudders into the relief of aftershocks with the work of Angelo’s hold around him.

Angelo keeps his grip for a moment, waiting for Corteo’s pleasure to ebb into calm, until Corteo can reclaim his breathing and ease his hold on Angelo’s hair to smooth his fingers back to gentle paths through the soft strands. Angelo draws a breath at Corteo’s shoulder, and lifts his hand free to brace at the bed, and Corteo keeps his eyes shut, keeps holding to the lingering edges of illusion as Angelo leans in over him to pursue his own release. It holds for a span of seconds, while Angelo is panting intent at Corteo’s skin and the heat of his own arousal is echoing Corteo’s recently-spent pleasure; and then Angelo’s thighs flex, his shoulders tense, and when he groans into Corteo’s shoulder Corteo feels the height as a pinnacle, a last glimpse of the greatest happiness he has left to him.

There is a moment of peace, after. Angelo is still breathing hard against Corteo’s skin; Corteo feels himself hollowed out, a bottle emptied of all but the memory of its contents. When he opens his eyes he can see moonlight silvering the room, wandering through the window to gild the span of Angelo’s shoulders and touch the simple trappings of domesticity to beauty. Corteo gazes out the window, considering the pale echo of reflected sunlight, the warmth of the day stripped to the cool distance of night; and he draws a breath, and he speaks to the quiet of the room.

“I love you, Angelo.”

Angelo stirs at his shoulder; Corteo can feel the shift of the other’s head under his fingers, can feel the spill of Angelo’s breathing over his skin. Angelo lifts his hand from the blankets beneath them, hesitating only for a moment before he presses his touch gently to the line of Corteo’s waist. “I love you too, Corteo.”

Corteo doesn’t ask for more than that. He doesn’t want to hear the lie in Angelo’s voice.


End file.
